Jay-Z Opens Up About His Mother’s Coming Out Story: ‘I Really Cried, I Was So Happy She Was Free’

Coming to terms with your sexuality for some isn’t always an easy thing. The pressure to fit in to what society considers as “normal” can be quite daunting and overwhelming, and keep many living in secrey for years. When that person decides to come out it’s truly a life-changing moment. Jay-Z sat down with David Letterman for an episode of Netflix’s “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” and revealed how he broke down and cried when his mother revealed she was gay for the first time.

If you remember, Jay rapped about his mom on his 2017 song “Smile.”

“This was the first time we had the conversation, and the first time I heard her say she loved her partner,” Jay-Z told Letterman.

“Like, ‘I feel like I love somebody.’ She held that little bit back, still,” he continued. “She didn’t say, ‘I’m in love,’ she said, ‘I feel like I love someone. And I just, I cried. I don’t even believe in crying because you’re happy. I don’t even know what it is.”

Jay-Z wrote “Smile” one day after he and his mother had the conversation eight months ago.

In the song, he raps about the struggles his mother went through.

“Imagine having lived your life as someone else, “ he told the host. “And you think you’re protecting your kids. And for my mother to have to live as someone that she wasn’t and hide and like protect her kids, and didn’t want to embrace her kids.”

“For her to sit in front of me and tell me, ‘I think I love someone. ‘I mean, I really cried,” Jay said. “That’s a real story. I cried because I was so happy for her that she was free.”

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